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ZDNet / Open Source / Review
OpenOffice.org 2.4.0
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Overview
OpenOffice is a fantastic program if you need a free basic Office suite. However, large organisations and power users will be disappointed by its lack of features and support.
The good
- Free
- Easy to install
- Intuitive menu system
- Open source
- Interesting add-ons
- Did we mention it's free?
- Lots of features and programs...
The bad
- ...but many less than in Microsoft Office
- Limited in functionality compared to proprietary office apps
- Poor ability to create graphs in spreadsheets
- Less commercial support
OpenOffice.org 2.4.0 is a free, open source alternative to Microsoft's Office application suite. It is fantastic if you need basic office applications — such as a word processor or spreadsheet — at no cost. However, large organisations and power users may be disappointed by its lack of features and support.
In its original form, OpenOffice.org was a proprietary office suite known as StarOffice and developed by StarDivision, but that all changed when Sun Microsystems bought the company in 1999.
Although Sun still sells StarOffice, the company also released the software's source code and created a new, community-driven project; OpenOffice.org. The suite is now free and is available under the GNU Lesser General Public Licence.
OpenOffice.org runs under Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. The download is 127MB and the install process is quick and painless. We originally reviewed OpenOffice.org 2.0 in 2005, but several revisions later the program has a lot of new features.
Being an open source project, OpenOffice.org has an intuitive interface that you would expect after feedback from a large community. However, you may be a little confused at first if you're used to Microsoft Office — the two are subtly different. OpenOffice.org is closer to Office 2003 and below, and is markedly different in user interface from Office 2007's new "ribbon" style.
You can get free support for the software from the OpenOffice.org forums. We found the help forums to be straightforward, but not comprehensive.
OpenOffice.org has no equivalent to Outlook. However, there are free open source email clients worth checking out, such as Mozilla's Thunderbird 2.
A nice feature of OpenOffice.org is the fact that you can add on extensions, which offer all kinds of unusual add-ons that proprietary vendors wouldn't touch — English to Hindi Dictionary and Thesaurus anyone?
Broadly speaking, you won't have any problems opening Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint files (including Office 2007 files) in OpenOffice.org, and you will be able to save to Microsoft's formats for use with Office. A multitude of other file formats are also supported. Unfortunately, at times a document won't be formatted quite right, but it's usually no problem to work around.
OpenOffice.org goes a little further than Microsoft in some places and allows users to export directly to PDF. It also has its own file format, ODF, which Microsoft has pledged to support.
While OpenOffice.org supports macros, macros written for Microsoft Office won't work in OpenOffice.org, and can't be transferred, which could serve as a major stumbling block for those looking to migrate, depending on how much effort has been placed into writing macros. You'll have to rewrite them all.
Something you might want to consider if you plan to install OpenOffice.org across systems with limited resources is that it's considerably more hungry than Microsoft Office. OpenOffice.org launches a "Quickstarter" on boot that will use up 20MB or so of system memory before you even launch an application. We ran Writer and Microsoft Word simultaneously and found Writer consumed around twice the system resources of Word.
OpenOffice.org is considerably more memory hungry than Microsoft Office
Writer
Of all the applications available in OpenOffice.org, its strength lies with its word processor, Writer. For those who use only the standard functions in Word or another proprietary office software, Writer is likely to meet your needs, unless you rely on a grammar checker, which is missing from the word processor.
Although the feature-set in OpenOffice.org is smaller than Microsoft Office, the OpenOffice.org development team has obviously worked hard to make some common tasks simple. For example, OpenOffice.org allows you to change the default language for different documents, paragraphs or even sections of text — a useful tool for Web publishing.
Changing the default language is easy in OpenOffice.org
We really enjoyed using Writer's interface. For example, a right click will give you access to commonly used formatting functions. Another useful shortcut is the ability to export directly to PDF with a single click. This function appears across all OpenOffice applications.
In addition, we found Writer's "help suggestions" to be less intrusive than Microsoft's irritatingly perky "Office Assistant", while the help files comprehensively documented the application's functions.
Calc
If Writer is the strength of OpenOffice, then Calc is its relative weakness. While Calc is a solid mathematical tool, its capacity to create graphs is inferior — you just can't represent data with the flair of Microsoft Excel, and graphs are one of Excel's most-used features.
Both the type and the customisability of graphs is limited. You're stuck with basic graphs including pie charts, bar graphs and XY scatter graphs. Once you create the graphs, they're basically images, with very little editable dynamic content. If you're in science or finance and need to demonstrate complex equations graphically, or want to create trend lines on your graphs, you may find OpenOffice.org frustrating.
Graphing options are very limited in Calc
One positive aspect about Calc is that it actually offers around 30 per cent more functions than are offered in Excel (roughly 338 in Calc versus 233 in Excel). Combined with Math, this makes OpenOffice a great mathematical tool and a worthy Excel rival. Alas, if only it could create better graphs.
Turn over to see Math, Base and our verdict.
Draw
Draw is OpenOffice's image editing application. It is unimpressive when compared to popular applications like Photoshop and is unlikely to even give the open source alternative GIMP, a run for its money.
When you first open Draw, it looks like it was designed for creating presentations rather than image editing, right down to the side viewing panel that labels your page as "Slide 1". Using the program furthers this impression.
However, it should be mentioned that Microsoft Office doesn't offer a drawing package at all, unless you count Publisher in some editions, which is mainly used to create stationery such as cards.
Impress
At first it's difficult to justify calling the OpenOffice's PowerPoint alternative "Impress". On start-up it offers two rather limp templates. However, once you get past that, Impress is a reasonably robust presentation tool. You can download additional templates from the OpenOffice website, which is recommended if you're going to use Impress regularly.
We liked the "tabbed" design, which allows you to move between five different views of your presentation, "Normal", "Outline", "Notes", "Handouts" and "Slide Sorter".
Another nice feature of Impress is that many of the commonly used functions, such as inserting slides or importing images, can be done in a single click. Impress also has the ability to create 3D objects. It's difficult to understand why the OpenOffice developers included 3D objects but not the ability to create custom colours — but colourful spheres do make nice bullet points. Impress also offers a diverse range of animation options, as well as the ability to add sounds.
Math and Base
The inclusion of Math, an equation creating program, is curious considering the limited graphing ability of Calc. If you need to put mathematical equations into your documents, it might be worth downloading OpenOffice just for Math.
Math is based on the proprietary program, MathType, and is similar to the Office Maths ML, offered by Microsoft. As an application, Math is frustrating if you know maths but not code. For example, to create the common quadratic equation:
You have to type: "x={-b +- sqrt {b^2 - 4ac}} over 2a". The mixture of text and symbols is hardly intuitive, but once you get the hang of it, it can be useful. Just don't try to write the code for Schrodinger's equation.
Base is OpenOffice's database application. If you just need to create simple databases — there is an example of a club membership database on the OpenOffice.org website — you'll find Base a ready and willing application. Base is the Microsoft Access of OpenOffice.org. It should be mentioned here that many versions of Microsoft's Office don't include the Access database package.
Verdict
While OpenOffice.org has been consistently compared to Microsoft's Office, for a free software suite, it offers remarkable functionality. Considering Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate retails at around AU$800 (versions with less features can be substantially cheaper, particularly the home and student versions), and competitors such as Corel's WordPerfect Office X4 sell for around AU$600, OpenOffice.org has the potential to save you or your business thousands.
In addition, most users will only use a fraction of the available features in proprietary programs such as Microsoft Office or Corel WordPerfect. The word processor is usually the most popular application in any office suite, and considering the diverse functions available in Writer, many users should find OpenOffice.org will fit their needs.
You should consider OpenOffice.org if you principally need a good word processor, and some basic office functionality on the side. There are many free or commercial applications that you can mix and match to make up for OpenOffice.org's weaknesses, it makes a nice piece of the open source set-up jigsaw. Combining OpenOffice.org with applications like Photoshop Elements, GIMP or Thunderbird should more than make up for its weaknesses.
If you are considering migrating from Microsoft Office — to OpenOffice.org or even the supported StarOffice — expect power users to initially be frustrated because of the lack of features and the less polished feel compared to Microsoft's offering. There's also the time it takes to get used to a different office suite.
However, despite its shortcomings, OpenOffice.org remains the most fully featured free office suite we have come across, and for this reason it well deserves our Editors' Choice.
Specifications
| Platform | |
|---|---|
| Mac | Yes |
| Windows | Yes |
| Web-based | No |
| Expand | |
Related stories
Talkback
OpenOffice Draw should not be compared to image manipulation programs like PhotoShop or Gimp, because these were designed for pixel manipulation, whereas OpenOffice Draw is a vector graphics application.
The best comparison is to compare OpenOffice Draw with Microsoft Visio, in which each have their strengths, but where I prefer OpenOffice Draw because it is productive and supports many file formats that I need.
Lars D August 6th, 2008What is the point of revieving OOo-2.4.0 in August when 2.4.1 was released in May?
Anonymous August 6th, 2008...Once you create the graphs, they're basically images, with very little editable dynamic content...
I'm not sure that the author has "played" around enough with the graph functions to fairly review them. Graphs created with Calc are fully editable...like in Excel...although admittedly it is not always intuitive on what you have to click on to edit a particular feature. Also Excel itself is hardly the benchmark for graphing function, as I have found it to be just as difficult to work with as far as creating and editing graphs...particularly if you have a complex situation (multiple y-axes, etc.).
SM August 6th, 2008If you are going to highlight the memory usage of OpenOffice.org, then we need to know how much memory "winword.exe" is running on your system. Without that figure your assertion is totally invalid.
"It also has its own file format, ODF, which Microsoft has pledged to support."
The author really needs to get the facts straight. ODF is not OpenOffice's file format, it is in fact an ISO/IEC standard.
From the WIkipedia page: "The OpenDocument format (ODF) is a file format for electronic office documents such as spreadsheets, charts, presentations and word processing documents. While the specifications were originally developed by Sun, the standard was developed by the Open Office XML technical committee of the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) consortium and based on the XML format originally created and implemented by the OpenOffice.org office suite (see OpenOffice.org XML). As well as a free and open OASIS Standard, it is (in its version 1.0 manifestation) published as an ISO/IEC International Standard, ISO/IEC 26300:2006 Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) v1.0.[2] The OpenDocument standard meets the common definitions of an open standard, meaning the specification is freely available and implementable."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument
Hamish August 6th, 2008Hi Everyone,
Thanks for the feedback. I want to address some of it.
Firstly, I am not comparing Draw to GIMP or Photoshop, clearly they have more functionality. My intention was to point out that if you already either of these programs (as I do) the functionality of Draw won't be an issue. (See later comment about the "open source set-up jigsaw.")
In regard to graphs, I was making reference to Calc's seeming inability to create trend lines from data. If there is a way to make Calc do this, please let me know. While you can still use the "LINEST" function, this process is hardly straightforward, and doesn't allow you to display equations on your graph.
The memory usage of winword.exe on my system is about 25MB.
You're right, ODF is an ISO standard, and was the first standard. But so is OOXML.
I am aware 2.4.1 is available, but I wrote most of the review while still using 2.4.0. I would be interested to know if the update invalidates any of my comments.
Cheers
Alex Serpo
Alex Serpo - ZDNet Australia August 6th, 2008You can create tend lines by Insert-Statistics and choosing, say, a type of regression curve. You can then have the formula show by selecting the regression curve on the graph and double-clicking the regression line. This brings up a dialog box. Select the Equation tab and then check...show equation. This places the equation on the graph. Hopefully, that's what you wanted to know. Cheers!
SM August 6th, 2008One thing not mentioned that bears heavily on the quality of Open Office is that it is one integrated program, rather than multiple independent programs. MS Office, by contrast, is a set of independently developed programs grouped together under a brand name.
This is why Open Office has a bigger memory footprint when you're only running one application. If you're running, say, Writer and Calc at the same time, the memory footprint is lesser, because much of the code is loaded only once, but used by both programs.
This is also why I consider Draw one of the real strengths of Open Office, rather than a weakness. It's not meant to compete directly with Adobe Illustrator, for example. It's meant to add good solid vector-based drawing functionality to all the other Open Office applications. The MS Office approach is to create the illustration in Visio or another application, then import the graphic into Word. In Open Office, you simply create the drawing in Writer using Draw.
I've gotten more and more fond of Open Office as I've used it. I find it especially useful for technical documentation, where I can easily create an outline, add screenshots, draw arrows and rectangles directly on the screenshots, and export it all to PDF. Sure, I could do every bit of that using multiple other applications, but not as quickly and easily.
Open Office is under-rated. If you know anyone stuck using MS Works, help them install Open Office. You'll have done your good deed for the day.
Tom Henderson August 6th, 2008The graph tool is surprisingly capable, but it's not even remotely intuitive.
As mentioned below, it does do trend lines and things, but it's certainly not obvious.
James August 6th, 2008OOXML is NOT an ISO standard yet, at least not until all of the appeals against it have been dealt with (FOUR countries appealed the decision to grant it ISO status).
Ian August 6th, 2008"OpenOffice.org is considerably more memory hungry than Microsoft Office"
I'm not the first one to notice your assertion is incorrect.
Use Sysinternals Process Explorer to see the "Private Bytes" column, which shows how much unshared memory the application is using... It's still not perfect, but not as inaccurate as your numbers.
The numbers shown in Windows Task Manager do _not_ tell you how much memory a program is using.
The "Mem Usage" is indeed the "Working Set" for the application : the least amount of data that must be kept in RAM to allow the program to run at a given time. A 100MB application could have a 1MB working set if it does nothing : however, it will still hold 100MB in memory (RAM or pagefile).
Microsoft Office applications are "optimized" to show a minimal working set : they are written so that the OS thinks most data can be moved to the pagefile. Minimize your Word 2003 window and the working set will drop to 2MB. The total memory consumption (private bytes and shared bytes) will however NOT change.
Michael PIFFRET August 6th, 2008By the way : OOXML actually refers to *nothing* clear.
There is some "OOXML"-called specification that is currently in the process of becoming an ISO standard.
There is also some "OOXML" file format that's implemented in MS Office 2007.
The two are different and COMPLETELY incompatible. Supposedly, Microsoft will make MS Office "ISO OOXML"-compatible for Office 14... which could be due in 3 years.
Michael PIFFRET August 6th, 2008My question is, did they ever fix tile/poster printing? This feature, perfected by MacDraw in ~1985, has never worked in OO, and still did not the last time I checked (Ver. 2.3).
L Povirk August 7th, 2008I think the reviewer missed one of OpenOffice's most compelling features: it's emphasis on Styles. These go beyond anything offered by MS-Office, to include page, frame and graphics styles.
Similarly, the reviewer did not appreciate the value of Draw. (Comparing Draw to GIMP or Photoshop is silly, BTW. Illustrator or CorelDraw would be more appropriate). With graphics-styles and features like 3D objects, connectors, Draw is excellent for technical illustrations, flow-charts, diagrams etc. It's probably not great for graphic-artists, but for everyday document illustrations, it's top-class.
Finally, Math is a very pleasant environment for composing equations. It's not as flexible as Latex but it's mnemonics are easier to learn and read. I'd take this over the equiation-editor in MSO any day (I speak as a physicist).
Calc (like all spreadsheets including Excel) is crap.
A new feature in development is HybridPDF generation. This produces PDFs which incorporate the ODF source document, so the PDF can be reloaded in OOo with no loss of fidelity. Users without OOo installed can still view the file in a PDF-reader.
bc August 7th, 2008The notion that charting is a strong point of Excel is an idea I've never heard before! Quattro Pro was better... and that was 10 years ago. If you really want to chart, you get something other than Excel for the job.
anon2 August 7th, 2008Custom colors not possible?
Create an object, right-click the object, select Area... from the right-click menu.
In the Area dialog box, click the Colors tab and have at it.
Paul French August 7th, 2008I do not have any idea if Open Office uses more system memory than MS Office or not but even if it does SO WHAT! How much does Open Office cost to download? $0.00 now how much does MS Office cost? I think it starts at around $300.00 and up. Now how much does the DDR2 memory cost for my PC? The last time I checked a 2 1GB sticks was less than $50.00 at Newegg.com. Now even if my system needed more memory to run after installing Open Office the additional memory would be far less than going out and feeding the MS cash cow yet again.
Robert Backlund August 7th, 2008Hi all,
As a Latin American user, I have to say that I've never paid for Microsoft Office. In most of the developing world, people use cracked versions, like me.
Since price is not an issue, I find Writer very user friendly and less cumbersome than Word, although the functions track changes and add comments in Writer are much less useful. Word, on the other hand, has grammar corrector and gives you confidence that the format will not change in other's people computers, which you can never be sure with Writer. That's why I have to convert to PDF, blocking other readers to make comments and changes.
I tried to migrate from Microsoft Office, but many features are lacking (specially in Calc) and I just couldn't. For the moment, OpenOffice is a good complement for Microsoft Office, but it cannot replace it.
Sebastian Peña August 8th, 2008Just a short note to let you know that Open Office also runs under Linux, a platform you somehow omitted under your Specification Heading.
Anonymous August 9th, 2008"If you're in science or finance and need to demonstrate complex equations graphically, or want to create trend lines on your graphs, you may find OpenOffice.org frustrating"
Who in Science uses Excel for graphs?! That's what Python is for, and that's free, too
foxzulu August 12th, 2008I have used Open Office since version 2.0 came out, and stopped paying for Office/WP upgrades. Another advantage not mentioned is I can use Open Office on my XP based machines, my Mac and my Linux based ultracompact...all for free. And when I work on a system that does not have Open Office...there is a portable version. For mac users I suggest NeoOffice, but it is the same program.
RJ Book August 13th, 2008This is good as you are using your too expensive sometimes problematic MS Office. Money wise go to openOffice and you have same as MS Office capabilities. You can convert your files to PDF directly with out an extra program or buying....
estokwa November 20th, 2008Be aware that OpenOffice.org 3.0 came out last month, and Calc's support for graphs has been greatly improved, to the point where that functionality actually rivals that available in Excel.
HINT: If you need a trendline, make sure you choose the "XY Scatter" graph type and not the "Line" type.
TRIVIA: OpenOffice.org is cross-platform compatible, free of charge, and open source. What's more, you can head to www.portableapps.com for a version that you can install on your flash drive and run on any Windows or Wine-enabled computer, without requiring installation.
Let's hear it for OpenOffice.org and the Open Source community!
Open Source Advocate November 20th, 2008i want open the microsoft visio in openoffice.org 3.0 give me some help
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@mibus http://www.zdnet.com.au/commbank-dives-into-580m-banking-it-revamp-339288467.htm
17 hours ago by jamezpolley on twitter
The tech keeping Plastiki afloat: photos: ZDNet Australia brings you the tech below deck on the epic Plastiki voyage. http://bit.ly/aTj1QU
18 hours ago by tessa_alfred on twitter
http://bit.ly/cJU6Mf We've added virgin to our iPhone 4 pricing table comparison.. See which telco has the best deal.
18 hours ago by zdnetaustralia on twitterThis story has been liked 5 times in the last 24 hours!
1 day ago, Australia's iPhone 4 pricing comparedKeep up with ZDNet Australia
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| Telstra BigPond | 37 plans |  1% |
| Optus | 76 plans |  2% |
| 3 | 9 plans | 1% |
| Virgin Mobile | 7 plans | 4% |
| Netspace | 36 plans | 1% |
| Mobile Broadband Plans | 8% |
| ADSL2+ Broadband Plans | 5% |
| Cable Broadband Plans | 4% |
| Naked DSL Broadband Plans | 1% |
| ADSL Broadband Plans | 6% |
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Lets face it, for 99% of users out there, both Corporate and Home, StarOffice does the job admirably. Unless you're right into heavy technical stuff then it's great. Most secretaries, salesmen and people wanting to type up a sponge cake recipe never, ever use any of that stuff anyway. I snuck StarOffice onto my work PC years ago and no-ones ever noticed, and I get word/excel/powerpoint files all day long. Add it to Firefox and Thunderbird and I've got this Windows PC pretty much into shape !